And Many More
by Amari Bell
Summary: An unusual birthday. "Jack Starbright had never seen Alex stage a temper tantrum before..." One-shot.


**Today's forecast: cloudy with a chance of fluff. (grin) **

**Okay, here's the thing (and you can skip this part if I've already almost bored you to death). I wrote this little one-shot before I wrote any of the other chapters for "Where the Heart Is." The idea was really random--I had just found a collection of dusty plastic food in my basement, and my 17-year-old sis and I played with it for the better part of an hour. (blush) Anyway, that's what inspired this story. I planned on posting it as Ch. 4 of WTHI, but it just didn't seem to fit. So I wrote a different Ch. 4 for that story, and now I'm posting this as a stand-alone one-shot, just in case someone might enjoy reading it.**

**I'll have updates on my others two stories very soon, but this story was already completed, so I figured I might as well post it. :)  
**

**Disclaimer: Who knows? I could be Anthony Horowitz--if Anthony Horowitz was a 19-year-old American college student wishing desperately that Alex Rider was real (and a few years older).**

Jack Starbright had never seen Alex stage a temper tantrum before.

The blonde boy was kicking his feet on the tiled floor of the toy store and screaming bloody murder. He snatched up hardboiled eggs and slices of apple pie and square-shaped burger patties, and he flung them at everyone within range. An egg hit a disgruntled-looking woman in the eye; Jack called out a breathless apology and tore the food tray away from Alex. It was plastic food, from the Littlest Kitchen Play Set, but Alex could still do some damage with it.

"Alex, please calm down!" Jack pleaded. "Just tell me what's wrong!"

In response, Alex brained her with a well-aimed plastic frying pan.

"That's it," Jack said, squaring her shoulders. "No more Miss Nice Girl."

She dove for Alex and grabbed him from behind. He squirmed and wriggled in her arms, like her little pet hamster used to do whenever she tried to clean his cage. But Alex was stronger than Fluffy McHampster had been. He twisted free, sprinted across the store, and bashed his head against the stove. The stove was plastic, too. But still.

"ALEX RIDER!" Jack screeched. "YOU ARE EIGHT-YEARS OLD! YOU ARE TOO OLD TO BE ACTING THIS WAY!"

Alex threw another piece of plastic food at her; she caught it out of the air and hurled it right back at him. He just managed to duck. Then he crawled into one of the plastic playhouses, slammed the tiny door, and commenced screaming his lungs out.

"Oy! What's going on out here?"

It was the manager of the toy store, who looked flustered and slightly impatient. When he saw Jack's guilty half-smile, his glared and puffed up his scrawny chest. "Miss, I have to ask that you remove your son from the premises. He's creating a disturbance."

"Alex is not my son," Jack snapped, her green eyes flashing. "How old do you think I am?"

"In human or dog years?"

"Listen, mister, I am in NO mood."

"Frankly, I don't care what mood you're in. Quiet that boy or get him out of here."

With a heavy sigh, Jack knelt down next to the playhouse and pounded on the little pink door. She had been living with the Riders for a few months, but only recently had it begun to feel like a temporary home. The little things were the most important—singing (usually off-key) when she was bored, and walking around without socks on, and saying whatever she felt like because nobody was listening anyway. Ian, who had always liked her, was now beginning to trust her. Life with the Riders was—comfortable.

But if Jack failed on this simple shopping trip, Ian would never trust her again.

"Alex, open up," Jack pleaded.

"NO!"

"Why are you acting this way, sweetie?"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!"

"Please just come out of there."

"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!"

"I'm calling security," the manager said flatly, and he dialed some numbers on the big red phone attached to the wall.

Jack thought she might very well gouge her eyes out. She had been hired to look after a little boy, not an angst-ridden teenager on the mood-swing express. She glanced around the store and forced a smile at an old lady dressed in what looked like a pink oversized quilt.

"Kids," Jack said, laughing nervously.

The lady shook her head fearfully and hobbled away.

That was the last straw. Through clenched teeth, Jack hissed, "Alex-Rider-if-you-do-not-come-out-of-there-this-instant-you-will-be-eating-my-rock-flavored-meatloaf-for-breakfast-lunch-and-dinner-until-the-day-you-die."

Silence, glorious silence, rang in Jack's tired ears.

Then Alex poked his tousled blonde head out the playhouse window. "I'm sorry," he said, rather meekly. "But the shelf in the action figure aisle broke, and it landed on my head, and it really hurt. I think I might have a—a conc—"

Jack stared shrewdly at him. "A concussion, Alex?"

He nodded, tears welling in his brown eyes.

"A shelf in this store fell and hit you on the head?" Jack repeated, as though she couldn't quite wrap her mind around it.

"Y-yes," Alex sniffled.

He crawled out of the playhouse, and Jack gasped.

"Oh my God, Alex, your head!"

There was an angry bruise and a small cut on the side of the boy's forehead. She brushed back his hair and hugged him tightly.

"Alex, you'll be okay. I should have listened to you earlier."

"It's okay," Alex said, giving her a small, brave smile. Jack smiled back, and winked ever so slightly. Then she stood up, a storm brewing in her eyes. "I need to speak to the manager. Oh—how convenient! You're already here!"

The manager gawked stupidly at her. At that precise moment, two security guards strode into the toy store, trying to radiate danger despite their thinning hair and half-hidden paunches.

"What seems to be the problem here?" one of the guard said importantly.

Silence. The shoppers wanted to stare, but they quickly averted their eyes in the same manner that a person will glance at a funeral procession and then quickly look away.

The store manager seemed to have frozen; Jack stepped boldly up to him.

"Look," she said. "You don't have to ask me twice to get out. I need to get Alex to a hospital anyway. But it was your workplace negligence, your lax safety codes, that caused a bloody _shelf_ to fall on this boy's head. And I don't have a lot of money to pay for a hospital visit. So what am I supposed to do?"

The word "bloody" just sounded silly when Jack said it, because she was American. But the manager didn't laugh. He was too distracted by the fact that she was _American_. Meaning she had been raised in America. Meaning that she had been raised with the mentality that a woman could sue McDonalds for too-hot coffee and win three million dollars.

"You're not planning to take legal action, are you?" the manager asked tentatively.

"I might," Jack snapped. "I am a law student. Top of my class."

The manager swayed on his feet, his face turning dangerously green. "Ma'am, I'm truly sorry about the shelf. You can just take whatever you were planning to buy—take it for free. Consider it my gift to you. And I'm very, very sorry about this whole unpleasant—incident."

Jack glared frostily at the manager. Alex was whimpering on the dirty tile floor, holding one hand to his head. The shoppers whispered about what a pity the whole thing was. The manager's eye twitched.

"Fine," Jack said heavily. "But I was doing some major toy shopping today. I may need to make a few trips to carry everything."

The manager's face collapsed with relief, almost to the point of tears. "Of course. Take all you need. Notify me if you require any help."

Jack nodded coolly. "Trust me, I will."

A crisis seemed averted. The store manager wiped a few drops of sweat from his brow. Jack and Alex, meanwhile, spent the next quarter of an hour transporting action figures, plastic walkie-talkies, a mini tent, a child-size snowboard, and a Disney princess beach ball (that one for Jack) out to the parking lot. At the car, the manager bowed his head.

"Again, I'm truly sorry. I hope the boy makes a full recovery."

"It still hurts," Alex said seriously. "But I think I'll be okay."

The manager returned to the mall, shooting apologetic glances over his shoulder at the most frightening twenty-two-year-old and eight-year-old team he'd ever seen. Jack and Alex watched him go, her arm snug around his small defenseless shoulders, his tousled blonde head resting against her bright red curls.

They waited until the manager disappeared through the revolving glass doors.

"Nice job, Alex," Jack said softly, ruffling his hair as Ian Rider often did. "An Oscar-worthy performance."

"I feel like I cheated," Alex said. Then he grinned. "But the man said it was free."

"He did," Jack agreed brightly. "And a shelf did fall on your head. Yesterday, in the basement."

Alex smiled reluctantly and rubbed the bruise on his forehead. The previous afternoon, he and Jack had been playing hide-and-seek, and the roof of Alex's hiding place had come loose from the wall and thudded against his head. Jack had patched him up right away. The injury wasn't serious, but it turned out to be rather convenient.

"Ian might get angry if we bring all these toys home," Alex said.

"Nah." Jack smiled. "This whole operation was your uncle's idea."

Alex's eyes turned as wide as saucers. "Really?"

"Yeah. I'm not sure what he wanted you to learn from it. How to pretend, I guess. How to lie." She snorted and unlocked the car. "He shouldn't have worried. You're a natural."

"Thanks."

"You're very welcome." Jack laughed. "The important thing is, we won't run out of toys for at least another year. And we won't be bored tomorrow."

"I'm never bored when I'm around you, Jack," Alex said sincerely.

Jack looked up at him, surprised. He grinned back. There was such shocking honesty and innocence in those serious brown eyes. How could he lie with such ease, and still be so genuine? And—Jack touched her heart briefly—what was this unfamiliar warmth that made her feel homesick and home all at once?

"I'm never bored when I'm around you, either," Jack said, and she meant it. "Happy birthday, Alex."

They buckled their seatbelts, one of Ian's strictest rules, and Jack pulled out of the mall parking lot. They drove in comfortable silence for a few blocks. Then Alex looked hopefully at her.

"If we stop at the Chelsea Cake Shop and I sort of bump my head on the counter, can you get us a free ice cream cake?"

"No, Alex."

"What about some confetti cupcakes?"

"Nope."

"Not even an ice cream cone?"

**Thanks for reading! Now, if you're not too busy digging your way out of all the fluff, drop me a line and tell me what you thought of Alex's 8th birthday (the happier version). Out of character? Too corny? Don't worry--I'm inclined to agree with you. :) **


End file.
